


Laugh for Me?

by ohnomyheart



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, Teen for some swearing, i swear it'll be cute in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-06-25 16:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15644733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohnomyheart/pseuds/ohnomyheart
Summary: Jisung falls in love with a dolphin laugh (and maybe even the person behind it), but it disappears before he can tell it so.In which Chenle stops laughing, and all Jisung wants is to hear it again.





	1. Falling

It’s only few weeks before their debut, and Jisung has never been more aware of how close it is. There’s this crazy, hyped-up energy among all of them, a bundled ball of terror and excitement that bounces off the walls, reverberates to their cores.

It’s pretty obvious they’re all losing their minds.

Jaemin’s weird kissing habit is becoming non-stop, Renjun keeps starting his sentences in Korean only to end them in Mandarin, and, as far as Jisung knows, Jeno hasn’t said a word to any of them in the past three days. 

“Our _dream_ is finally coming true!” Jaemin says, wiggling his eyebrows, far too proud of his own wordplay. He sweeps an arm out to grab whoever is unlucky enough to be close to him (Renjun), and plants a over-affectionate peck straight onto his cheek.

Renjun squawks indignantly and shoves Jaemin straight into the nearest wall.

Mark, who’s been trying to get the duo to sit still for the past ten minutes, throws his hands up in the air, and instead turns to Jisung, who, at the moment, is thinking about how chewing gum really just gives you flavored spit, and Jeno, who, at the moment, might as well be dead for how responsive he’s being.

“Hey, you guys, don’t worry-” the older starts, but Jisung zones out before he can hear what Mark doesn’t want them to worry about.

Jisung gives Mark credit for stepping up as their leader, for trying to assure that they’re all going to be fine, but it’s pretty obvious from the dark circles under his eyes, the frazzled edge to his voice, that neither he, nor anyone else, has any idea what they’re doing.

Also the pep talk he’s giving is completely overshadowed by Donghyuck clowning him the whole time. 

“Hey, you remember before our first 127 stage, when you were so nervous you almost puked?” Donghyuck says, bouncing from one side of Mark to the other. “Remember you told me you cried for an hour the night before your debut? Oh, Donghyuck,” he mocks, in the cringiest exaggeration of Mark’s voice Jisung has ever heard, “What if they don’t like me? What if I mess up?” 

Donghyuck grins, and pokes at Mark’s cheeks. “Remember that?”

Mark looks like he’s about to strangle someone, but Renjun beats him to it first, hands locked around Jaemin’s neck after a second attempted kiss, this time on the lips. 

A stream of rapid-fire Chinese fills the air, and though Jisung doesn’t really understand what Renjun’s yelling, it sounds like Jaemin’s getting roasted, which is pretty funny.

Suddenly there are hands waving in his face. 

It’s Mark again, trying to get his attention, and Jisung snaps back to reality, does his best to focus his wandering eyes on the older, even though it’s far more entertaining to watch Jaemin try for round three the moment Renjun lets go.

“Hey, you with me?” Mark takes Jisung by the shoulders and shakes him a little bit. “At least you’re doing okay, right Jisung-ah? You’re feeling ready?”

Jisung doesn’t feel ready in the slightest, but Mark looks desperate for a win, so he nods dumbly. 

In reality, he’s been stumbling through their ten-hour practice days in a panicked stupor, that debut stage the only thing his last three brain cells can think about. 

Jisung sighs. 

They’d be lucky to have three brain cells left among the seven of them.

He shakes his head to try to clear his mind, and turns to watch Chenle instead, still practicing the movements off to the side, controlled and calm, almost fading into the background with all the noise around him. 

It’s throwing Jisung for a loop, how put together, how normal, how un-Chenle, he’s acting. The craziness he’s come to accept as an indisputable part of the boy has completely disappeared under a newfound focus. 

And for all his broken Korean and complete lack of trainee experience, Chenle’s treating this debut thing like it’s no big deal. Nonchalant, smiling, relaxed and confident, he’s everything that Jisung, currently a hot mess, is not. 

With a loud double clap, their choreographer rounds them all up to run through their performance again, and again, and again, standard set at perfection. 

Through it all, Jisung’s eyes follow Chenle in the mirror, waiting for him to crack, waiting for him to return to the Chenle he knows.

He waits.

And waits.

And waits some more.

Then, two hours later, Chenle stands up in the middle of the practice room, and starts laughing. 

There was really nothing to laugh at, no one had said anything, no one had done anything; they were barely moving at all, flopped over on the ground, panting and sweaty after drilling the same move for the twentieth time in a row. 

The outburst is a little strange, but to be honest, Jisung’s more relieved than concerned. He was starting to suspect that Chenle had been replaced by his cooler, but more evil twin from an alternate dimension.

And in the middle of watching the happiest mental breakdown Jisung’s ever witnessed, it hits him.

It’s not like it’s the first time he’s heard Chenle laugh, but it’s certainly the first time Jisung truly notices how _absolutely insane_ it is. It’s squeaky and loud and near goddamn hypersonic, but also so bubbly and playful and energetic that it makes Jisung think he’s never heard anything closer to pure joy.

“Oh my god, please shut up, I think my ears are bleeding,” Donghyuck groans, but he’s already starting to lose to his own giggling fit. Before a minute can pass, he’s rolling around on the floor, howling. 

Renjun is the next to go, then Jaemin, and Jisung. Even Mark breaks out into those hyena barks and seal claps of his, and Jisung thinks Jeno is actually smiling because his eyes have squished into those signature crescents.

“Why is this so funny?” Donghyuck demands to no one in particular, out of breath.

 _A dolphin. He sounds exactly like a dolphin,_ Jisung thinks. And then accidentally says out loud.

“Our Jisungie’s right!” Jaemin cries, hands waving in the air. “Lele, are you sure you don’t belong in the ocean with your real family?” 

But the question goes unanswered because no one can really even hear Jaemin, voice lost underneath a wave of deliriously bright and beautiful sound. 

Too tired to understand what they’re laughing at and too tired to care, they let it all out.

For one perfect moment, they laugh away everything, their stresses and their heartaches, their worries and anxieties, and replace it with a cry to their youth, to their hopes and dreams. 

Through the tears in his eyes, Jisung looks over at Chenle, now curled up in a ball, but still laughing, and can’t help but snort.

A weird screechy laugh for a weird screechy kid, but it’s kind of endearing.

Staring up at the ceiling, up at the bright lights, with his members’ laughter echoing all around him, Jisung feels warm and fuzzy.

For the first time in a long while, Jisung feels certain of his future, certain that he made the right choice.

And he only has Chenle to thank for that.

\--

Fast forward a few years, and Jisung, not that he’ll ever admit it, might be a little, tiny bit in love with that dolphin laugh. He finds himself going out of his way to roast his hyungs, or to subtly poke fun at himself; hell, he’s even sacrificed his own dignity to tell Chenle horrendously lame dad jokes, just so he can hear it.

So when Chenle stops altogether, Jisung’s devastated.


	2. Changing

_Okay, maybe devastated is a little extreme,_ Jisung thinks.

He certainly isn’t _pleased_ with this little turn of events, but it’s not like the world is ending. It’s not like Chenle has stopped laughing completely. 

But everytime Jisung’s sure Chenle’s about to break out into those signature giggles, Chenle only throws him a stilted half-chuckle, two octaves deeper than it should be, controlled, and though Jisung doesn’t even want to associate the word with Chenle, it’s distinctly _manly_. 

“Dude,” Jisung starts one evening, after practice has ended for the day.

“Dude,” Chenle mimics from across the room, back flat on his bed, feet up against the wall, eyes still focused on his phone, probably scrolling on twitter or weibo or whatever. 

“Seriously, what’s with that chuckling thing you’re doing lately?”

Chenle double taps something, and then tilts his head back to look at Jisung upside down. “What chuckling thing?”

“You know what I’m talking about. That weird laughing thing you’re doing.” Jisung gestures vaguely. “You know.”

And before he can get his thoughts in check, something along the lines of _‘It’s just I really like your old laugh and it makes me happy and feel better when I’m down and you look so cute when you do it and please laugh for me’_ , tumbles through his head. 

Jisung cringes internally, wishing he could slap himself without looking weird. Even inside his own head, he’s horrifically embarrassing.

Regardless, Jisung tries again. “You know, that thing. That thing you’re doing with your laugh.” 

“Very descriptive, Jisungie,” Chenle snorts, eyes drifting back to his phone. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah you do,” Jisung says pointedly. “Everytime something funny happens you just make this ‘heh-heh-heh’ sound and it’s weird.” He shakes his head. 

At that, Chenle sits up indignantly. “I do not sound like that.”

“You sound exactly like that.” 

“No I don’t.”

“Heh,” Jisung mocks.

“Stop it.”

“Heh. Heh-heh-heh-”

Jisung gets a pillow and then a Chenle to the face. Chenle’s got the element of surprise and wrestles him into a headlock, but Jisung’s lankier, with longer reach. They scuffle for a bit, until Jisung has Chenle pinned.

“Alright,” Chenle relents. “I’m sorry.”

Jisung flinches, and immediately takes his hands back, watching as Chenle scoots out of his reach. He fidgets guiltily, because Chenle really hadn’t done anything wrong, and now here he was, being a bad friend, making Chenle feel like he had to apologize for something out of his control and-

“Sorry,” Chenle repeats, in such a sad and ashamed tone that Jisung’s stomach twists into knots. 

“No, I-”

“Sorry that you’re such a big _baby_ that you can’t handle my _manly_ laugh,” Chenle finishes, darting out of range and dashing out of the room before Jisung can grab at him again.

Jisung groans and rolls over on the ground, defeated. He’s been played.

Chenle pokes his head back into view, holding onto the doorframe, concern scrawled faintly across his features. It’s an expression he doesn’t wear often.

“Jisungie, about the laughing thing, it’s just that-” he pauses, fumbles for the right words, and Jisung’s memories of their trainee days, of horribly google-translated phrases and over-exaggerated hand gestures resurface. 

Chenle frowns, looking more tired than Jisung’s ever seen him, before restarting. “It’s just that I’m growing up. You know that, right?”

Jisung’s heart sinks a little. 

He does know that.

It’s not like puberty wasn’t a thing, it’s not like his own voice hasn’t cracked and deepened. It’s not like he hasn’t changed since they first met. 

And maybe it’s because it’s only now hitting him for the first time, but suddenly Jisung’s taken aback by the way Chenle’s jawline has sharpened out, the way he no longer has that sort of pudgy roundness to his cheeks, the way his features have defined themselves over time. 

Chenle suddenly seems like a different person, and when Jisung catches a glimpse of himself in their mirror, tucked into the corner of their room, he realizes Chenle could say the same about him.

They’re not kids anymore.

For a split second, Jisung thinks even Chenle’s eyes are a little dimmer, a little more world-weary, but then the older grins from ear to ear and Jisung’s mind goes blank.

_Cute._

“Too bad you can’t relate, you two-year-old,” Chenle snickers, before ducking out of their room for real.

Jisung takes everything back _(well not, uh, the cute thing)_ , because Chenle is still a total child.

But the new laugh itself?

That definitely sounds more adult.

It’s less special, less happy, less like the one Jisung has grown up with for the past four years.

It’s less like Chenle.

Or rather, less like his Chenle. 

_Wait._

Jisung imagines if his life was a badly written drama, there would be record scratch right about here.

 _Since when did you start thinking of Chenle as yours,_ a tiny voice asks, and Jisung actually does slap himself this time. 

Done with his feelings, done with his stupid, stupid thoughts, and done with life in general, Jisung falls face first back onto his bed, suffocating himself in his pillow.

_Is this what teenage angst feels like?_


	3. Pretending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh here comes the angst

It’s been forty-seven days since Chenle’s laughed.

Not that Jisung has been counting or anything, but he’s pretty sure it’s been forty-seven days. 

And it’s driving him insane.

_Not insane_ , he corrects. _It’s not that bad._

He’s been doing that a lot lately, mind spitting out random, over-the-top thoughts about himself and sometimes about Chenle (and sometimes about the both of them, not that Jisung’s been daydreaming about that either).

But even he won’t let himself deny that he really misses Chenle’s laugh.

Jisung doesn’t even know why. 

What he does know is that, in a weak moment, he’s saved three compilation videos of Chenle giggling to his youtube playlist.

There’s something else though, something worse than what Chenle told him about growing up and all that.

Because Jisung swears Chenle himself has been fading out. 

It’s like watching the most brilliant star in the night sky die.

Jisung watches that signature warmth slip out of his smile, that bubbliness fall from his words, watches his whole personality gray, drain, dull into something so lifeless, so dead, that it makes Jisung sick to his stomach.

It’s not until day fifty-two that Jisung realizes that the ‘something else’ is sadness. 

Call him stupid, but it’s _Chenle_. And Chenle has never given into sadness. 

He feels like those two words shouldn’t even exist in the same universe together, but here Jisung is, watching them collide with his own eyes. 

By day sixty, all Jisung wants is for it to stop, wants it to go away. Wants Chenle to start talking to him again, wants him to make fun of him like the way he used to, wants him to stop going straight from their schedule to his own apartment and then back again, without so much as a glance in Jisung’s, or really, any of their directions.

He knows Renjun’s already chased him down, so has Mark and Kun, even Taeyong’s tried, but Chenle’s too good. The moment they approach him, he flips a switch, goes back to being himself for that brief moment, all luminous and shining and beautiful, and god, it’s so convincing that even Jisung thought it was finally over, before a week later, Jisung realized he still wasn’t talking, still wasn’t smiling, still wasn’t laughing, realized it was all fake. 

A lightbulb, a heat lamp, trying to take the place of the sun.

Jisung’s tries to help too, but he’s bad at feelings and talking and people and it’s always, always been Chenle lifting _his_ spirits. 

Now that it’s the other way around, all he can manage are choked dead-end conversations, where Jisung tries to talk about everything and Chenle pretends to talks about nothing.

Jisung doesn’t think he’s ever felt so useless.

It’s not until day sixty-three until something changes.

\--

Jisung’s absolutely exhausted. It’s been a long, long day of photoshoots and filming and so many other events that he can’t even remember everything he did today. What’s worse is that he got booted to the end of the shower-line, Donghyuck pushing him off the couch to make a break for the bathroom, even after Jeno promised the next spot to him. 

By the time Donghyuck’s done, he has to shake Jisung awake after he had fallen asleep on the floor. 

“Sorry Jisung-ah,” he says tiredly, pulling a wobbly Jisung to his feet, ”I didn’t realize you were like borderline passing out.”

Jisung takes the shortest, coldest shower he’s ever experienced, and then heads straight for his room. God, he can’t wait to just be unconscious for eight hours.

Shutting the door behind him, he stumbles his way over to his bed in almost pitch-black darkness, tripping on the pile of clothes he forgot to put in the laundry yesterday along the way.

He nearly breaks his shin bumping into his bed frame, but at this point, any pain is for future, well-rested Jisung to deal with. He drops like a rock onto the mattress.

And then he yelps, flailing backwards.

There’s someone else curled up on Jisung’s bed, form indistinct under a pile of his blankets.

Jisung doesn’t even need to turn on the lights to know it’s Chenle.

Before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “Why are you here?”

To be fair, Jisung hasn’t seen Chenle in their dorms for over two months, ever since his mom moved out to Seoul to be with him, and the last place he was expecting to find him was on Jisung’s bed in the middle of the night.

The lump, Chenle, wriggles a bit. Jisung thinks it’s a shrug.

Voice a little softer, he tries again. “Why are you here?”

There’s a long stretch of silence, and Jisung’s almost dozes off before he gets an answer.

“More comfortable,” Chenle finally murmurs, muffled under the comforters.

Even half-asleep, Jisung frowns; there’s something wrong with that answer. There’s no way their cramped dorm can be more comfortable than the upscale downtown apartment Chenle’s family bought. He knows they’ve got the money to give Chenle every luxury he could ever asked for. 

Jisung’s been there himself, and though it’s not as flashy as he thought someone as rich as Chenle would’ve made it, it was still leagues ahead of what SM was providing them.

“I don’t think so,” Jisung mumbles sleepily. It’s all he can manage.

Chenle’s quiet for another long while.

“I missed you.”

_That’s sweet,_ Jisung thinks hazily, letting the words go completely over his head. This is quite a nice dream he’s having.

Then his eyelids slam open, heartbeat stumbling over itself. He whips his head around to look at Chenle, but the older is turned away from him, curled into the wall.

“Really?” he whispers, incredulous. “Like, really?”

Chenle draws in a long breath. 

“Really.”

Then Chenle rolls over, and Jisung’s chest seizes up, eyes widening even more because it’s been so long since Chenle has even acknowledged Jisung’s existence, let alone acknowledged the fact that he just said he missed him. It’s dark enough that Jisung has to strain his eyes to make out Chenle’s face, but it doesn’t stop a blush from creeping up his neck.

Jisung just barely catches sight of the ghost of a ghost of a smile on his face. 

“Are you smiling?” Jisung asks, hope in his voice so blatant, so childishly obvious that it surprises himself. He coughs as if that would help regain some of his dignity, and tells himself to tone it like twenty notches down.

The smile grows a tick wider.

“I guess I am.”

But there’s still an elephant in the room, something heavy in the air that presses on them, and he knows they would both rather ignore it. 

Jisung considers letting it go unsaid, biting the inside of his cheek.

He can’t though, can’t not know, can’t not try, and the words come out, dark and harsh and uncomfortable.

“Chenle, what’s been wrong with you recently?”

The smile disappears, and Chenle stares at Jisung for a long, long time, thinking, calculating, trying to decide. 

Jisung returns the look. Waiting. 

But fatigue numbs his senses, begins to drag him under. He’s tired. So, so tired.

Before Jisung can stop himself, he slips into unconsciousness, unanswered question still laced in the air, Chenle’s pensive face the last thing on his mind.

When he blinks his bleary eyes open again, it’s morning, and Chenle’s gone.


	4. Breaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bumping it up to a teen rating for some swearing

For another unbearable two weeks, Chenle drifts in and out of the periphery of Jisung’s life, as if he had never had come to Jisung in the first place, never told Jisung he had missed him.

Every time Chenle slips through Jisung’s attempts at conversation, attempts at reaching out, another bit of Jisung’s resolve cracks.

He doesn’t care about the laugh anymore.

Jisung just wants his best friend back.

\--

It’s a Tuesday night, snowy and dark outside, that Chenle shows up again.

He’s back on Jisung’s bed, in almost the same position as the first night, curled up, cocooned in a mass of comforters, as if trying to shut out the outside world.

Jisung goes to lay down next to him, heart shaky, fingers fidgety. He’s considerably more awake then last time, mind slingshotting between hope that Chenle’s actually coming back this time and fear that he’s only going to drive him away again.

“Do you want to, uh-”

Chenle shifts away from him, just the slightest bit, and Jisung falters.

“You want to, you know…talk about it?”

He winces. It sounds forced and self-conscious and insincere in all the wrong ways.

Jisung thinks the silence that he gets in return is probably deserved.

They lay like that for a while, side by side, listening to each other’s breathing, steady, as quiet as the snow falling to the earth outside. 

No one says a word.

Jisung instead drifts through his memories, back to happier things, back to that one time when they were filming for Show Champion and Chenle straight up fell through a table on camera. Jisung couldn’t stop laughing for a week after the fact.

_(“Lele, you’re a menace to inanimate objects everywhere.”_

_“Shut up, Park.”)_

Jisung’s still lost in thought, smiling at his own incredible roasts, when Chenle rolls over, and in one smooth motion, tucks himself under Jisung’s arm, against his side.

Jisung just about jumps out of his own skin. 

“Chenle-” he squeaks, but Chenle remains mute, indifferent, which is amazing because Jisung thinks he’s about to start hyperventilating.

He drags in a breath to steady himself, then another, and just as he thinks he’s calmed down enough to process what’s going on, Chenle decides Jisung wasn’t panicking nearly enough.

“Can you, like, relax?” he mutters, lips moving against the fabric of Jisung’s t-shirt. “I can feel your pulse and it’s like you’re having a heart attack.”

Jisung chokes. “Uh, have you maybe considered that I am?”

“What, not much of a cuddler?” Chenle says, rolling his eyes, pulling himself closer to Jisung. “Lame.”

_Is that what we’re doing? Cuddling?_

“I am not lame.” Jisung sputters, brain shorting out from the sudden turn of events. “You’re lame.”

“Whatever, loser.”

And Jisung laughs incoherently, embarrassment and giddiness burning up his skin. Chenle feels so nice against him, warm and familiar and Jisung thinks he’s starting to enjoy this a little too much. 

But even though half of him is lost in dreamland, happy and content and all melty inside, the other half knows there’s still something not right.

He scrunches his eyes closed, gathers up the courage, and braces himself. 

Worst case scenario, Chenle just ignores him like last time.

Right?

“Why have you been so sad lately?” 

Immediately, Chenle stiffens up beneath his touch, draws away. He doesn’t move much, a centimeter or two at most, but already, the space next to Jisung feels colder.

For a few minutes, they’re lost in a vacuum, in outer space, without light, without sound, without anything.

“I’m not meant to be an idol, Jisung,” Chenle finally says, muted, a sliver of resentment embedded in the words. 

Jisung’s stunned into silence, a sudden mess of thoughts and emotions tearing through his head.

_Chenle? Not meant to be an idol? That doesn’t-_

“I made the wrong decision.” 

“What? No you di-”

“I was young,” Chenle spits, “and stupid and thought I could do anything.”

“Lele, what are you talking ab-”

Chenle makes a sound, and Jisung would call it a laugh if it weren’t so bitter, so acrid. “I was so wrong, Jisung.”

Jisung’s temper flares, and he sits up. “What do you mean you were wrong? You really can’t see how good you are? People love you!”

“Love me? I know you’re kind of thick sometimes, but you’re an absolute dumbass-”

“ _Dumbass_?” Jisung’s taken aback; he’s never heard Chenle so scathing. “Chenle-”

“You’re an absolute _dumbass_ if you think for a second that they love me!” Chenle explodes. “I don’t-”

“ _You’re_ the dumbass if you can’t see how much talent you have and-”

“I don’t belong here, Jisung! Wake up!” He rises up like the tide and grabs Jisung by the shoulder, lightning flickering behind his eyes, rolling thunder in his voice. “I don’t deserve to be in NCT, and everyone knows it.”

“Don’t deserve to be on the team? Are you kidding me? I’ve never heard anything more _fucking stupid_ in my entire life!” Jisung seethes, throwing Chenle’s arm aside. “And the fans? You _know_ they _adore_ you.”

Chenle laughs that not-laugh again, so caustic that it corrodes the air they breathe. 

Jisung’s teeth grind together at the ugly, ugly sound.

“You know what my _adoring fans_ are saying about me?” He leers at Jisung, as if daring him to guess. “You know what they tell me?”

“What, that they love you? That you’re their precious baby? That they want to marry you?” Jisung scoffs, mimes in a bitter falsetto, “Oh poor me, I’m Chenle and I have too many girls who want me-”

“Ha, wow Jisung, you really got me there,” he says, “but you left out the fucking part where they said that my family did business under the table to get me here, that they paid the higher-ups, that I _bought_ my way in.”

Chenle jabs a finger at Jisung, a sarcastic, distorted imitation of a smile stretched across his face. “And you know what? I’m starting to believe them.”

Jisung slaps his hand out of the way, shoves Chenle backwards. “That’s complete garbage and you know it.”

“Sungie, use your goddamn brain, if you even still have one,” he says, smacking the side of Jisung’s head with the flat of his palm.

Jisung hisses, tries to elbow Chenle away from him.

“You don’t think my family’s power had any influence on the company on all? You really don’t think SM might’ve thought it would’ve been good to make connections like that?”

“No, you got here because you auditioned like the rest of us and you had what it takes." Each word tumbles into the next, picks up volume until Jisung’s yelling at the top of his lungs. "And so what?" he demands. "So what if they did? It doesn’t matter because you work hard and you have the skills and talent to make it happen!”

“It doesn’t matter?” Chenle stares at Jisung like he’s just crawled out from a garbage heap. “You think it doesn’t matter?” 

“I don’t,” Jisung snarls. “Not in the slightest.”

Without taking his eyes away, Chenle grabs roughly at his phone, tucked under Jisung’s pillow, and unlocks it. 

He forces the screen into Jisung’s face and opens the messaging app and scrolls through it, thumbs through hundreds and hundreds of messages from unknown numbers.

And even though Jisung doesn’t see any of them fully, he gets the idea. 

It’s horrible.

They condescend, they attack, they threaten, they tear into Chenle’s character, his personality, his effort, his everything, and rip it, rip it all to shreds. They tell him he should be ashamed, that his family should go bankrupt, that he would be better off dying, dead for stealing stardom, the spotlight from those more skilled, talented, passionate than him.

Jisung reaches out for the phone.

Chenle throws it at him instead. “Tell _them_ it doesn’t matter.”

It hits Jisung in the chest, and he fumbles for it. 

“How did they-”

“Someone leaked it. I don’t know how or where, but they got it.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jisung’s watches Chenle stand, get off the bed to slam his weight against doorframe, irritation and ire rising up off of him in waves. 

“What and let my parents know there are hundreds of strangers threatening my life? Their lives? Their entire business?”

Something in Jisung breaks, and all the anger drains out of him, pools pathetically at his feet.

“The managers?” Jisung offers weakly.

Chenle sneers. “So they can kick me out to save face? Before it becomes a corporate headache?”

“Lele, that’s not going to happen, they wouldn’t do that,” Jisung says, but honestly, he doesn’t know, and his voice trembles slightly, uncertain.

_Would they do that?_

His heart twists. 

“I even went down to the phone place and they wouldn’t let me change my number. Something about the whole contract and how technically SM owns it and how I would need an authorized signer,” Chenle says, a hand carding through his hair in frustration. “I’ve tried.”

“But why didn’t you tell us?” Jisung asks.

_Why didn’t you tell me?_

Chenle eyes him with the strangest mixture of pity and disbelief and disgust. “Why would I want you guys to know I’m a fake? That I took the spot of another rookie you’ve trained with for years?”

“That’s not-”

Chenle straightens suddenly, teeth digging into his bottom lip, hands twitching, nerves burning, as if he needed to be anywhere but here. “I-I need to go.”

“Lele, please-”

“I’ll talk to you some other time.”

And he disappears.

Just like that.

Jisung doesn’t move for an eternity, doesn’t even watch him go, instead listening to the fading footsteps, the clicking of opening and closing doors, and finally, the muffled silence that fills his lungs, that drowns him, that tells him he’s gone.

Chenle’s gone.

Jisung’s lost him.

Again.

His eyes flicker down to his hands, still holding onto Chenle’s phone, fingers wrapped so tight around it that his knuckles have turned white.

He releases his grip.

“Jisung-ah,” a voice calls.

It’s Jaemin, in his pajamas, hair a mess, heavy-lidded and half-asleep.

“Yeah.” Jisung clears his throat, forcing his gaze upwards. “What’s up?”

“Are you okay? I thought I heard some yelling or something.” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just…” Jisung trails off, searching for something, anything that wasn’t the truth.

He doesn’t want to hear it out loud.

“A movie,” he supplies, “I was just watching a movie, that’s probably what you heard.”

Jaemin’s brows furrow, lips thinning into a frown. “You sure?”

There's a painful beat of silence, where Jisung struggles to chain up all the feelings and fears that are suddenly clawing against the inside of his mouth, beating against his rib cage, trying to break their way out his head.

Inhale. Exhale.

“I’m sure.” 

Jaemin isn’t convinced in the slightest, but he takes a moment, trying to piece together the puzzle, before deciding to let the excuse slide, dissolve into the night.

A small mercy.

But Jisung takes it nontheless.

“Okay, but hey, for real though, tell me if something’s up.”

“I will.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” The older gives into a yawn that engulfs his entire body. “Night, Sungie.”

“Night, Jaemin.”

Jaemin melts into the shadows as he rounds the corner, shuffling back to his own room.

“Just a movie,” Jisung whispers to himself, to the darkness. “I’m fine.”

“I’m fine,” he lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow cuddling to fighting in two seconds flat that's gotta be a new world record
> 
> also please be aware this is all just fiction! none of this is based on real events


	5. Hurting

It turns out, Chenle’s idea of ‘talking later’ was actually talking never.

Chenle doesn’t even try to pretend anymore.

He won’t say a word to Jisung, won’t look at him, won’t even be near him. It doesn’t matter if they’re five or fifty feet apart, all Jisung has to do is take a step in Chenle’s general direction and he disappears, stealing away into hallways and bathrooms and recording sessions that Jisung knows he doesn’t have.

Jisung doesn’t even have a chance to give Chenle his phone back. It still lies on his nightstand, heavy and ominous.

He’s already deleted all the messages he could find, blocked all the numbers he could, but still, more pour in. Some even have the audacity to call, to leave voicemails.

Completely average, normal, ordinary voices spewing out such vicious hate that Jisung goes numb when he hears it.

He’s stopped listening to them.

Rather, every morning when he wakes up, he clears them out like clockwork. 

Swipe, tap, delete, repeat.

He wipes the phone clean, stares at the blank screen until he convinces himself there was never anything there in the first place.

It doesn’t matter though, not really.

He can’t take back the ones Chenle’s already seen.

He can’t fix everything’s he’s broken, fix the all the things that were already broken.

So he doesn’t.

Instead, he does the only thing he know he can’t mess up.

He dances..

At midnight, long after the studio has been deserted, Jisung walks into the biggest practice room he can find, footsteps echoing lamentingly off the silent walls, and locks the door behind him.

Two yellow spotlights flicker on weakly above him, small and alone in their struggle to light the endless space.

A stain of brightness in a room of shadows.

Jisung connects his phone to the speakers, and before he can decide against it, he picks out the playlist that Chenle made for him.

 _‘for jisung pwark :)’_ , it says.

Jisung stares at the text, simple, plain, unassuming, for a little to long.

Then he throws the phone aside, and the music starts up, loud, pounding, rhythmic.

Jisung goes with it, clean, sharp. 

Like he’s been taught all his life.

But as one song dies and the next starts, it gets harder to keep control.

His movements grow, bigger, wilder.

By the time the he reaches the last track, he pours the power of entire oceans into the tiniest of transitions, every motion overwhelmed with frustration and heartache, excessive and uncontrolled.

It’s too much, far too much, but there’s still a violent beauty, a destructive sadness to it all that makes it impossible to look away from.

And then, like all else in life, the music stills into silence.

Jisung collapses into a sitting position in the middle of the floor, chest heaving.

Everything burns, his skin, his lungs, his eyes.

He buries his head in his hands and convinces himself that he can’t tell if it’s sweat or tears that pool into his fingers.

Jisung does it again the next night, and the next, and the next, until he can no longer remember a time he didn’t.

\--

Jisung stands at the bus stop, trying to ignore the cold that’s threatening that seems to bite right through his jacket. He pulls his face mask up a little higher, his baseball cap down a little lower, and shoves his hands into his pockets.

There’s a couple businessmen milling off to his right, a group of middle aged woman and a young, probably middle school-aged, girl to his left.

It’s just a normal Monday night for them. They chat idly, scroll through their phones, stare off, lost in thought, at the quickly darkening, overcast sky. 

It’s not a normal Monday night for Jisung.

He honestly can’t remember the last time they had even three and a half hours off from their schedule, let alone three and a half days.

Jisung’s fairly certain most of the other members went back to the dorm to just crash for the remainder of the evening, though he did see Lucas running around, screaming, a case of beer from who-knows-where in each hand.

And from the way Mark was letting Donghyuck plant disgustingly cheesy, sloppy pecks on his cheeks, it was pretty clear at least one of them was already drunk.

Jisung makes sure Donghyuck sees him gagging. 

He gets a middle finger in return.

“Rude,” he yells, but now they’re kissing for real, and Jisung decides to leave, because any longer and he’ll have to bleach his eyeballs.

Jisung heads for the doors, and as he pulls his hood up, he realizes it’s honestly pretty easy to slip away unnoticed.

He could see how Chenle did it.

Jaemin, Renjun, and Jeno do flag him down briefly on their way out to karaoke, but Jisung makes up some vague plan involving an internet cafe, and though the three share a brief, concerned glance, they let him go, splitting ways after crossing the street together.

“Have fun!” Jaemin choruses, looking back over his shoulder.

Jisung sighs.

Maybe he _should_ just go to the internet cafe, fight monsters and battle strangers online until his eyes hurt and forget it all.

But then, right as he’s convinced himself to turn around, to park himself in front of a computer screen for the next five hours, the bus pulls up.

And almost without his consent, his feet start moving.

Jisung gravitates slowly up the stairs, into the warm, glowing interior, regretting all of his life choices.

\--

It turns out, the universe must really hate Jisung, because not only has he missed his bus stop twice, but he also ended up going half an hour in the wrong direction when he decided to get on the subway out of his newly found hatred for above-ground transportation. 

By the time he gets back to his starting point, he’s convinced himself that stress induced color blindness has to be a thing. Squinting at the big lighted map full of criss-crossing subway lines, Jisung swears the magenta and the red ones look exactly the same.

When he finally gives up on the subways to try the buses again, it’s another fifteen minute wait in the freezing cold for thing to actually pull up, and then he finds out he paid for what literally would’ve been a two minute walk to the other side of the block.

By the time he arrives, staring up at the sleek, imposing, disappearing-into-the-clouds-it’s-that-tall apartment building, he’s already exhausted.

And the real challenge hasn’t even begun. 

Jisung shivers and rubs his hands together, feeling a little too much like a human popsicle than is probably healthy, and slips into the warm lobby, behind a woman draped in a massive mink coat. 

The place is huge, and Jisung can’t help but gape, wide-eyed and childish. He’s been here once before, but it doesn’t take away the glamour of gleaming marble and glass and the modern art chandelier that hangs from the three story high vaulted ceiling. 

He only snaps out of it when mink-lady starts for the elevator, and he breaks into an awkward jog to catch up to her.  
Jisung hopes she doesn’t think anything of the suspicious teenage boy that’s kind of following her around, but honestly, he’s pretty sure she can’t see anything in her peripheral vision with all that fur ringing her neck.

Still, he tries to act nonchalant, like he’s meant to be there, while they wait for the elevator.

It’s not easy though, not when everyone, from the residents to the staff, seems like they were curated by the gods themselves.

A man walks by with a glittering diamond watch that’s probably worth more than Jisung himself.

Jisung tugs the worn edge of his sweatshirt sleeve over his own glaringly diamond-free wrist, and tries to imagine himself in a three piece suit instead, hair slicked back, runway and photoshoot ready. 

The illusion doesn’t hold up long though, especially not when catches his reflection the massive decorative mirror that hangs on the wall.

Scared, he thinks. 

He looks so, so scared.

A lump forms in Jisung’s throat, and though he swallows hard, it doesn’t go away.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

Then the elevator dings, and again, his feet seem to move out of their own volition. 

He floats in behind the woman, who inserts some kind of security card into a scanner and selects the 9th floor with a perfectly manicured finger.

Jisung, security-card less, slams his entire hand into the panel before she can draw her card out, and ends up pressing no fewer than seven buttons.

She side-eyes him, and immediately, words bubble uncontrollably out of Jisung’s mouth.

“Uh, I’m just, I’m just here to see a...” 

Jisung hits a mental roadblock, and the woman’s delicate features pull ever so slightly into a frown.

“A friend,” he finishes. “I’m just here to see a friend. Who lives here.”

_Good job, Jisung. Way to act normal._

He clasps his hands behind his back, trying to look innocent, which he really shouldn’t need to do, because that’s honestly why he’s here. 

She gives him a once-over, apparently decides he’s not worth the trouble, and turns away boredly.

Jisung lets go of a breath he didn’t realize he was holding when she finally exits.

But now that he’s alone, he can hear the blood roaring through his ears, pulse pounding in his head as he watches the floor numbers continue their silent march upwards.

By the time the doors open, his heart is about ready to make a break for it through his ribcage. He takes a left, and stops at the door at end of the hallway, gilded with the numbers 2720. 

Just as he works up the courage to press the doorbell, the entryway swings open, and Jisung, already on edge, stumbles backwards.

It’s not who he expected, but rather a woman, a slightness to her stature that even the four inch heels can’t cover up. Short, neat hair that’s starting to gray, creases around her eyes, her mouth, she’s got an air of refinement, of dignity and easy confidence about her.

She tugs on a large suitcase, and it’s only after extending the handle and placing her matching purse on top, does she turn around and see Jisung.

“Can I help you?” she asks through a thick, choppy accent..

“I’m Park Jisung, from NCT,” he says, taking special care to enunciate. He reaches into his pockets, fumbles around before pulling out a phone. 

“Lele-”

The woman quirks an eyebrow.

Jisung feels himself go red.

“Chenle,” he corrects hurriedly. “Chenle left this with me a couple weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to give it back to him.”

She stays silent, waiting, expectant, as if she knew there another reason Jisung decided to show up at their door.

The pause barely lasts a couple seconds, but Jisung feels the air between stretch thin.

His gaze flits desperately away from hers, searching for anything else to land on as he works the words out of his mouth, mumbly and hesitant. “I also, um, want to talk to him, if that’s okay with you.” 

She smiles, proper and polite, but there’s also now a mischievous lilt to her expression, subtle, muted, yet still very much there.

“I’m his friend, by the way. I don’t know if I mentioned that.” He sticks out his hand stiffly out in greeting. “I’m Jisung. From NCT.”

She returns the gesture. “Hello, Jisung from NCT, it is nice to meet you. You enjoy introducing yourself multiple times?”

Jisung’s voice lurches up an octave. “I guess so?” 

The woman laughs, clear and light. “I am just joking. I have heard your name before, seen you perform with Chenle. But you are…”

Humming, she glances at him, and Jisung fidgets, tries to stand up a little straighter, not sure if he’s failing some secret test she’s set up for him.

“Taller,” she finishes. “Taller than I expected.” 

She chuckles again, and Jisung relaxes a little.

“I am Chenle’s aunt. His mom is on trip in Japan, will be back in a few days. I came to visit for a little bit, but I have to catch a flight back home soon.”

She gestures to her suitcase, and Jisung immediately moves out of the way, stumbling over an assortment of _sorry-for-making-you-late_ s and _I-didn’t-mean-to-get-in-your-way_ s, until it melds into one big, vaguely apologetic mess.

The woman smiles again, but this time there’s more of a warm, almost motherly tint to it. “Do not apologize, but I really must go. Please, go ahead and talk to Chenle.”

Moving forward, she grips Jisung’s arm and squeezes affectionately. “I think it would be good for him.”

“Goodbye, Jisung.” She waves, and Jisung dips his head into a bow.

And then Jisung is alone again.

By now, it’s a familiar feeling.

He takes a deep breath, faces off against the unlocked door, and pushes it open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you best believe that auntie zhong knows what's up 
> 
> also pls ignore the constantly changing chapter count bc jesus christ i'm bad at breaking these things up


	6. Waiting

The inside of the apartment is as beautiful as the lobby, and spacious too.

It’s also empty.

“Chenle?” he calls quietly, both wanting and not wanting a response.

He doesn’t get one.

Jisung slips off his sneakers, clicks the door shut behind him, and steps in.

An open living room yawns to Jisung’s left, anchored by plush white carpeting and a stylish gray couch, and complete with an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Jisung drifts over to stand in front of the clear glass, and looks out over Seoul, his city, glittering, opalescent against the night sky.

He lingers for a bit too long, and even in the warmth of the clear blue flame that crackles agreeably in the fireplace next to him, Jisung shivers.

He wanders back over to the doorway and then crosses into the gleaming kitchen at his right, a sea of black cabinets and marble countertops and stainless steel appliances. It’s immaculate and spotless, the whole scene is catalogue-worthy.

Which only makes the dining table stand out even more.

The table itself, like everything else, is modern and sleek, but any style has been lost under a mess of papers and sticky notes, pens and pencils and half opened books, even a laptop haphazardly balanced on an empty bowl, its charger irreversibly tangled with not one, but two pairs of headphones, as if someone had decided that, instead of untangling the first one, it would just be easier to grab a second. 

Jisung pages through one of the books, about Korean grammar, and sees Chenle’s telltale lopsided highlighting and doodles. He recognizes a few of his own (mostly unhelpful) notes here and there, and even a couple pieces of (objectively more helpful) advice in Renjun’s handwriting that Jisung’s sure went ignored.

It’s only when he pulls back, takes another look, that he realizes literally every other piece of paper on the table is also covered in Chenle’s writing, legions of chaotic, script-like Chinese characters dancing across the once blank space. 

It’s strangely beautiful, but also hurts Jisung’s head to look at.

There are so many bits crossed out, and arrows with little inserts loop all over the place, and it’s not like Jisung can even read Chinese in the first place, excluding the three characters that made up the name that Chenle had given him.

Even though Jisung had been re-named purely out of boredom, them messing around backstage waiting for the crew to do their final technical checks, he had secretly kept that piece of scrap paper, copied it down with his own clumsy strokes over and over until he could see it with his eyes closed.

And now, here it was, scrawled too many times for it to be an accident.

He notices that it’s also always accompanied by another trio of characters.

对不起。

The two groups aren’t always in the same order, nor are they always right next to each other, but everywhere Jisung looks, as long as he finds one, he finds the other without fail.

Strangely enough, once those two phrases are penned out, the writings never hold onto their coherence for long, instead dissolving into a piles of scribbled out sentences, rewritten phrases, and one-off characters.

But those six words--Jisung’s name, and the unknown 对不起--remain constant in the storm around them.

Jisung shifts part of the pile aside, and his eyes instinctively latch onto something he does understand, one tiny spot of Hangul in the sea of unfamiliar symbols.

지성. 

Ji-Sung. 

That’s it.

The beginnings of a translation, but abandoned, unfinished like everything else on the table.

And then it hits him.

These were letters.

Not about him, but addressed _to_ him.

He sweeps the papers back into a stack, backpedals away, and suddenly he hears his mom’s voice ringing through his head, talking to a seven-year-old him after a dance practice.

_(“Sungie, you know you only get to see what other people want you to see, right? You don’t know that Minsoo didn’t have a hard time with that move too. Maybe he went home and practiced all night, maybe he asked someone for help, and you’d never know.”_

_She pulls him onto his lap even though he’s getting too big for it and peppers his face with kisses that make him giggle._

_“It’s kind of like trying to get your own unedited footage to match up to someone’s finished movie, isn’t it? You see all your bloopers and silly mistakes, but Minsoo? He’s had a chance to cut all that stuff out before he showed you.”_

_She plants one more big kiss on the top of his head._

_“Right, Jisung?)_

_Right,_ he thinks. _But this is the opposite of what you were saying._

This was breaking into the editing room, trespassing, prying into the corners of Chenle’s mind, and trying to pick apart the first and second and third drafts that Jisung didn’t have a right to even see. 

He tries to reason it out, to tell himself that he couldn’t even understand any of it, but it still leaves a metallic taste in his mouth, heavy sinking feeling in his stomach.

Maybe 对不起 actually meant ‘I hate you’, or ‘I don’t want to be friends anymore’.

Maybe he just wanted Jisung out of his life entirely.

He bites down the bitter thoughts the best he can, shoves his hands into his pockets roughly and makes his way back to the last corner of the apartments.

The bedrooms.

And Chenle will have to be in one of them.

\--

There’s a total of three bedrooms, one master and two smaller, tucked away behind the kitchen on a little elevated platform.

Jisung glides silently up the the staircase that contains all of two steps, taking both in one stride.

Swinging between the two vacant rooms, he takes note of their clean, neat nature. 

Like neither had ever seen use.

Nothing to see.

_So then why am I standing here?_

It’s a stupid question.

He knows.

Knows by the way his chest tightens, by the way he feels like throwing up whenever he pauses in front of the one room that’s shut.

Jisung knows.

How long does he spend pacing in the ten-foot hallway, scrabbling for a little bit of courage each time around?

That, he doesn’t know.

Back.

Forth.

Back.

Forth.

Inhaling sharply, Jisung abruptly about-faces, and before the determination he’s cobbled together can fall back to pieces, he raps his knuckles against the wood.

“Chenle,” he says. “It’s Jisung.”

Silence.

“I have your phone, if you want it back. You left it at the dorm, you know, last time-”

He breaks off.

Stamps out the tremor that’s creeping into his voice.

“Yeah, so I have it,” Jisung offers, a hand wringing around the back of his neck. “I mean, if...if you want it.”

“I guess I could just, uh, leave it on here, but I…”

Jisung squeezes his eyes shut.

“I…”

It hurts to breathe, for some reason. 

“I want to talk to you.”

Like something sharp has lodged itself in Jisung’s chest.

“We can figure this out, please, Chenle. Even your aunt said it might be good for you.”

Cutting at his heartstrings.

“Lele, please,” he says, knocking his fingers lightly into the door.

Jisung’s hand drifts to the metal door handle, and he rattles it gently.

It rejects him too, locked.

“Chenle, I…”

And then he stops.

Turns around, slides down to the floor.

 _Leave,_ Jisung tells himself.

But he doesn’t.

A thousand reasons to go, yet he doesn’t pick himself off the ground.

The ceiling, the walls, the beautiful apartment, it all looks so distorted when filtered through tired eyes, a tired heart, and the static, the numbness that fills Jisung’s mind.

He forgets that there are neighbors, real people with real lives on all sides of them, forgets about the other NCT members, forgets about being an idol for the first time in forever, forgets it all to be a lost, lovesick teenager, sat in front of his best friend’s door, waiting and waiting and waiting for something that will probably never come.

The world narrows to Jisung, Chenle, and the rift that yawns open between them.

Everything else deadens. 

Falls away.

There’s a clock somewhere nearby, ticking.

Jisung lets it’s steady rhythm lull him into a trance.

And he waits some more.


	7. Fixing

There’s a weight on his shoulder.

A hand.

Jisung blinks his eyes open, looks upwards.

It’s Chenle, expression empty, unreadable, hair sticking up all over the place, in a pair of old sweats and one of Jisung’s t-shirts that hangs a slightly too low on him.

And as always, as ever, Jisung’s heart begins to race, stomach filling up with butterflies that beat their wings in time with his pulse.

Jisung stares, waits for the dream to dissolve, for himself to wake up and find himself still without Chenle.

 _This isn’t real,_ he thinks.

And even if it were, Jisung knows by now how it will end.

But instead of disappearing, instead of telling Jisung to get lost, Chenle only tilts his head upwards, gesturing Jisung to stand.

Jisung stands, breath catching when Chenle then slowly glides his hand down Jisung’s arm to intertwine their fingers together. 

Neither says a word.

Chenle grazes his thumb over the back of Jisung’s hand almost absentmindedly, as if it were something they had been doing for years, then turns, walks back into his room.

Jisung can only shuffle after him, dumbly, obediently, like a child, as Chenle gently tugs him forward.

This isn’t real.

Chenle closes the door behind them, and relative darkness reclaims the space, though the gap between the curtains allows a sliver of weak moonlight to spill in.

Though the bedroom is designed in the same way as everything else, clean lines and modern aesthetic, there’s something about it that’s definitively Chenle: the sweatshirts thrown over his chair, the keyboard leaning crookedly on its stand in the corner, the giant NCT poster on the wall that he’s taken to vandalizing with a black marker. Not even Jisung’s managed to get away clean, his face overtaken by a pig snout and the dumbest mustache he’s ever seen.

It makes Jisung think of the old Chenle, his Chenle, the Chenle that would giggle and laugh and talk to him about everything.

He looks at it for a bit too long, and Chenle, as if he could hear Jisung’s thoughts, pulls him away, draws him over to the bed and sits him down on the edge.

Their gazes lock for a split second, and all Jisung can think is that doesn’t want to let go, that maybe Chenle doesn’t want to either.

For this one brief moment, both of them exist outside of space and time, tethered to only each other.

Then Chenle breaks the link, pulls away, and walks back around the bed to lay down on his own side.

Jisung feels the mattress shift under the older’s weight.

His fingers clasp together, but he finds it doesn’t feel nearly as nice as when Chenle held them instead.

The night stills around them.

“I thought you wanted to talk,” Chenle finally says, voice low, trailing off into whisper.

Jisung jolts upright. 

It’s been weeks since he’s heard Chenle’s voice.

The words begin to tumble from his mouth. “Yeah, I did-” 

He fishes the phone out of his pocket and drops it twice before setting it shakily on the nightstand.

“Your phone. I wanted to give it back, and don’t worry about, uh, the messages. I’ve already deleted everything and blocked all the numbers and everything so you don’t have to worry.”

A weird burst of laughter rises up out of Jisung, nervous and off-kilter.

“But I mean, I guess they could just use different numbers or like find some other way to, so it’s not like I actually did anything useful, haha.”

His vision starts to blur.

“But!” he babbles, “It’s not like there aren’t other ways we can fix it. Like we could just switch phones and tell the members and our families and stuff that we wanted to try it out, right? They probably won’t think much of it, you know?”

“Jisung,” Chenle says, but it’s all moving too fast, and Jisung can’t stop, everything spilling out of him.

“Or like you could just give your phone to me before you look at it and I could just delete everything for you, like I’m doing now. That would work, wouldn’t it? Or maybe I could keep it overnight and do it first thing in the morning-”

There’s a wetness on his cheeks, and Jisung scrubs at it frantically.

_Am I crying?_

“Jisung.”

_Can he tell?_

“I could buy you a new phone! And pretend it’s a belated birthday present and then your parents wouldn’t have to suspect why you had to switch your number, right? I can do that for you. I can do that and then maybe you would feel better-”

His voice cracks apart.

“Jisung-”

“You don’t actually believe them, do you? Because you’re worth so much more and you’re talented and you work so hard and you weren’t stupid, not at all. You made the right choice, Lele, because now you have our fans and all everyone in NCT and you have-”

He swallows hard.

“You have me, Lele.”

And the rest of it?

All the sappy, mushy stuff about being best friends and wanting him to laugh and thanking him for crashing headfirst into Jisung’s life?

It goes unsaid, because Jisung still isn’t good at feelings, not really.

He pretends that he’s not a coward, screws his eyes shut.

Takes in a deep breath.

And braces himself for it all to collapse in on itself.

It doesn’t.

Instead, there are arms wrapping around him, warm and familiar, and Jisung doesn’t know how to feel anymore, how to react, heart shot to pieces and then rebuilt a thousand times over. But then Chenle pulls him closer, tighter, like he’s never held onto anything more precious in his life, and Jisung surrenders it all, lies down to curl around Chenle, melt into his touch.

Chenle’s fingertips begin to run gently through his hair, soothingly along his back and all of his fears, his worries about losing Chenle, they break clean in half;.

Jisung wonders if this what paradise is.

An eternity passes, and just as he’s about to transcend into cuddle-induced bliss, he hears Chenle ask, soft, “Were you crying?”

“Uh-” Jisung coughs. “Of course not.”

He can almost hear Chenle rolling his eyes.

“You totally were,” Chenle says. “You sound all snotty and gross.”

He groans, buries his face into Chenle’s shoulder. “Rude.”

“I didn’t think the great Jisung Park, dancer of the century, was such a crybaby.”

Jisung makes a whiney sort of noise that he isn’t particularly proud of, but it’s worth it to hear Chenle snort.

Something between them shifts, and Chenle pulls away slightly, lifts Jisungs head off his shoulder so they can look each other in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” Chenle says, and his gaze flickers downwards, off to the side, before settling back on Jisung, “for ignoring you. That was, asshole-y of me. And for everything else too.”

“That was pretty asshole-y of you. You better make it up to me,” Jisung grumbles, but there’s no bite to it at all. 

Chenle smiles. Not as big and bright and unabashedly as before, but it’s real.

It’s a start.

And suddenly, Jisung realizes. 

There is no old Chenle, no new Chenle. 

Yeah, maybe Jisung wants him be happy like he used to, to laugh like he’s trying to talk to every dolphin in the world simultaneously, but none of that matters, none of it will ever matter, as long as it’s _Chenle_.

There is only one Chenle he cares about, and it’s the one in front of him right now.

The only problem is this Chenle also happens to be tilting his head towards Jisung, ever so slightly.

“Make it up to you? How?”

Jisung knows he’s doomed.

“Uh,” he stutters, eyes already fluttering shut against his will. “You decide.”

Chenle closes the distance between them, the last puzzle piece finally clicking into place.

And Jisung’s gone, gone, gone, falling to pieces and flying at the same time.

The kiss is pure and sweet and shy, just the slow simple press of Chenle’s mouth on his own, but Jisung tastes glowing, glittering sunshine and clear blue sky, dizzy with cherry blossom touches that make him want more, want it all. 

Yet, right through the sunshine, the sky, the flower petals, laced across Chenle’s lips, is a question, barely there, but insistent.

Jisung gives it an answer, gives it all back, pours adoration and affection and everything he couldn’t say before into it, and hopes it communicates better than any words he could have ever chosen.

If they wake up the next morning, Chenle with a giant patch of drool on his shoulder and Jisung with no feeling in his arm after it was crushed all night, then so be it.

Jisung wouldn’t want it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just one more chapter to go :)


	8. Laughing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god it's finally done

When Jisung blinks awake the next morning at the crack of ten AM, he finds that one, he has indeed drooled all over Chenle’s shoulder, and two, that his arm, lodged under Chenle’s waist, has completely lost all feeling.

He shakes Chenle with his free hand, but when all he get is a half-asleep groan, he resorts to shoving the boy off of him completely.

Unfortunately, he maybe overestimates how much force he needs in his own bleary state, because Chenle lets out a surprised shriek before hitting the floor with a thump.

“Sorry!”, Jisung calls, peering off the edge of the bed at a ruffled looking, albeit adorable, Chenle. He’s still desperately trying to shake his numb arm back to life and reaching down to offer Chenle his good one, when the older takes both in his hands and yanks hard. 

“What the hell-” Jisung screeches, tumbling head first into Chenle. 

It results in a lot of ‘ow’-ing and elbowing each other. 

Finally, after a brief game of “your foot is in my spleen”, Chenle untangles himself from Jisung with a groan and stands up.

“You know,” Chenle sulks, looking down at Jisung, “there were other ways to wake me up.”

He takes Jisung’s hand again, and this time pulls Jisung up to his feet. 

Jisung wobbles a little before steadying himself, and blows his tangled bangs out of his eyes. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, maybe like saying, ‘Chenle, wake up’?” 

“Or,” Jisung coughs, “I could kiss you. That’d be nice.”

“What?”

“What?” Jisung tilts his head innocently, feigns ignorance, but he knows it doesn’t work because there’s a pretty flush on Chenle’s cheeks, a sly, lopsided smile pulled across his lips that makes Jisung gulp.

“Or you could kiss me,” Chenle muses. He wiggles his eyebrows at Jisung. “That’d be nice.”

Jisung throws himself onto the bed, lets the fluffy comforters suffocate his burning face. “I hate you,” he says, turning his head just enough to fix Chenle with a pointed look.

“You love me,” Chenle scoffs. “ _And_ ,” he adds, wagging a finger in the air, “I fully expect a good morning kiss tomorrow.”

_Tomorrow_ , he thinks.

Something light and soft blooms in his chest.

_There’s going to be a tomorrow._

But instead of anything meaningful like that, he says, “Gross, who said I’d want to kiss you,” which Jisung thinks is much better.

He gets a pillow, and then a Chenle to the face, arms locked around him in a tackle, but this time, Jisung lets Chenle win, if only because he knows it will turn into a hug.

When it does, Jisung can’t stop smiling.

\--

Jisung didn’t think he was particularly clingy or cuddly (there are more than enough pictures of him running away from Jaemin on the internet to prove it), but evidently his crush-addled brain had other ideas.

When Chenle lets go after their impromptu wrestling session, Jisung immediately attempts to grab him back.

“Wow, Ji,” Chenle teases, “I didn’t know you liked me this much.”

“Just making up for all that time we could’ve been cuddling but you were too busy ignoring me,” he huffs, poorly pretending to not care, while caring a lot.

Chenle grins, and pokes at Jisung’s cheek. “Cute,” he sings, fondness coloring his voice in a way that makes Jisung all warm and bubbly inside.

Jisung reaches over and pinches Chenle’s face back. Before Jisung can think about what he’s doing, he leans forwards, and drops a peck on Chenle’s nose. “Cuter.”

Both of them immediately turn red, blush spilling over their skin like watercolor on paper, but what really catches Jisung is the funny sound that fills the air, if only for a split second.

An almost-giggle. An almost-laugh.

He counts it as a win for the both of them.

\--

Jisung gets a pile of clothes tossed in his direction and instructions to go shower, because apparently he “smells like the bottom of Jeno’s gym bag”, which Jisung takes full offense, and then some, at.

He purposely uses an absurd amount of the melon-scented shampoo and body wash, lathering probably three times the normal amount into his skin and hair.

_I better smell irresistible after this,_ Jisung grumbles to himself. _Or at the very least like I spent the last hour rolling around in the fruit section of a grocery store._

As he steps out the bathroom and bedroom into the bright, sunlit hallway, he spots Chenle, beads of water on his damp hair and skin catching the light. He almost seems to glitter, dewy and bright.

It all looks, all feels so different from when he last stood here last night.

Is it the daylight, the cold, clear sky that streams in through the windows? 

Jisung doubts it.

Is it the cute-sounding song thumping away in the background? 

Probably not.

Is it Chenle, dancing wildly along to it as he sweeps away the mess of bowls and books and papers on the dining table, mouthing lyrics into a spoon as if it were a microphone, singing as if he were performing in an arena of ten thousand?

Is it Chenle, shining, eyes bright again, smile hopeful again, grabbing Jisung into a hug, congratulating him on no longer smelling like a sweaty teenager, telling him he’s a loser, telling him that he’s his favorite loser?

Absolutely.

Jisung, now flopped over Chenle’s shoulder, points at one of the pieces of paper, covered in Chinese script, that Chenle’s brushing into a crumpled stack.

“Wait,” he interrupts, pointing. “What does this say?”

“What? 对不起? Duìbùqǐ?”

Jisung nods, then suddenly recoils into himself, remembering his intrusion into Chenle’s privacy. 

“Uh, sorry, I kind of looked through these yesterday,” Jisung admits. ”I saw my name, and those three characters a lot and I was just curious…”

Chenle pauses for a moment, stares down at the words. 

Jisung holds his breath.

“It says, ‘You’re stupid’.”

“For real?” Jisung scrunches his nose, narrows his eyes at Chenle, who looks at him as innocently as ever. “You just felt like writing ‘Jisung, you’re stupid’ over and over again?”

“Yup,” Chenle says. “Pretty much.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.” He nods, face completely neutral.

“Oh,” Jisung says. He’s not sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. “I guess--”

And then Chenle breaks into a snicker, a big cheeky grin. “Sungie, you really are stupid.”

Unbelievable. 

He’s never trusting Chenle ever again.

“I’m never trusting you ever again.”

Chenle takes Jisung’s arm, and wraps it more firmly around himself as if to prevent him from letting go.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It means, ‘I’m sorry’.”

“Oh.”

Oh, because now Jisung’s thinking how many of dozens of times had he seen those words, that phrase, written out, about how much must it have meant to Chenle to try that many times to get it right. And all for a simple apology, and what’s more, an apology to Jisung, who would’ve forgiven Chenle for stabbing him, so long as he smiled at him afterwards.

“I don’t know, we weren’t really talking, and-”

Chenle chews on his bottom lip, eyes tracing the edge of the paper as he searches again for the right words.

“And,” he pushes on, “I didn’t know how to fix things, and I just wanted you back, you know? So I thought maybe it would be easier to just write you a note or letter or something and leave it on your desk, but, obviously, that didn’t work out either.” 

He motions to the dozens of scrapped drafts, revisions on revisions on revisions, of things he couldn’t say, wouldn’t say, didn’t know how to say.

_Oh,_ Jisung thinks. 

_Oh._

They fade into silence, hearts strung together in a quiet dance to music that hums vigilantly on in background, thinking, reflecting, apologizing, forgiving. 

Jisung makes note of this moment, of how Chenle’s warmth seeps into his skin, of how he’s been lucky enough to be born into the right universe, the right timeline, one where he’s allowed to be stupidly in love with his best friend and one where his best friend feels the same way; so Jisung lines it, lines it with honey and dreams so that he’ll never forget, and files it away.

It’s Chenle that pulls them out of their reverie.

“So again,” he says, inhaling. “I’m sorry. For being mean and a dumbass and ignoring you and all.”

“I’m sorry, too, Le,” Jisung echoes, words falling heavily from his mouth. “For, like, blowing up at you and not realizing there was something else going on and stuff.”

“Yeah, you better find a way to make it up to me, Sungie.”

It takes Jisung a minute, but he breaks into a smile at the familiar phrase. “Make it up to you? How?”

Chenle taps his chin in false contemplation, before grinning, and letting his eyes fall shut. “You decide.”

Jisung moves forward hesitantly, breath catching in his throat when he tips his head down to brush a kiss onto his Chenle’s forehead, and then another, and another, falling into a rhythm, an addiction, as he trails them down over his eyelid, his cheeks, before finally placing one right at the corner of his mouth, soft and light and fleeting. 

Chenle turns his head to slot them together, but Jisung’s faster, and ducks away before they meet, running a finger over Chenle’s lips as he pulls back. Jisung tells himself it’s just because he likes messing with Chenle, and not because he would’ve just exploded if they had actually connected.

But right then, as he tries to anchor the fluttery, zero-gravity sensation pulling at his stomach, Jisung realizes that he’s not even convincing himself. That nervousness, that excitement, as if every time touching Chenle, kissing him, was the first, will probably never go away.

His heart palpitates in agreement, and he swallows hard, hoping he doesn’t look too lame.

When Chenle’s realizes Jisung’s really not going to go for it, he cracks an eye open to glance at the awkward, blushing mess that is Jisung is quickly devolving into, and squishes his mouth into an exaggerated pout.

“Not fair,” Chenle whines, and makes grabby-hands at Jisung, who can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up out of him. “I kissed you for real last night, and this is what I get?”

“It’s not my fault you want to kiss me more than I want to kiss you,” Jisung quips, even though that couldn’t be farther from the truth. All he wants is to kiss Chenle until he can’t anymore, until his lips are numb and he sees stars even when he’s not looking at the night sky.

Unfortunately for Jisung, his brain decides to shut down completely every time he gets the chance.

The comment earns him a flick in the temple, but it’s almost as if Chenle can read his mind, because the next thing out of his mouth is, “We’re making out later after breakfast, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Jisung voices his whole-hearted approval, and Chenle (even though Jisung likes all his smiles) smiles one of Jisung’s favorite smiles, the one that turns his screws his eyes nearly shut and shows all his teeth, dusts pink across his cheeks.

It’s the one that makes both stops Jisung’s world from turning and start it again, the one that was always for him, had always been there for him.

And Jisung knows he’s mirroring it, can feel the big, stupid grin spreading across his own face.

Chenle moves to throw away the last of the unsent letters, all the frustrations and unspoken heartaches fluttering into the bin, and then grabs a pan, presumably for whatever breakfast entails.

\--

The yóutiáo, or “fried dough breadstick things”, as Chenle describes them, rank among the best things Jisung has ever eaten, even though both of them, being piss-poor at anything even vaguely culinary related, have managed to screw up half of them, even though they were pretty much ready to eat out of the bag.

After Jisung burns his fifth one, and Chenle accidentally pours an entire ocean of oil on top of the another, they settle for just reheating them in the microwave, dance battling it out as they wait for the timer to run down.

Chenle also warms up to big mugs of soy milk for the both of them, and after plopping everything down on the big table, they gorge themselves.

Jisung’s fairly sure they’re both going to end with heart disease before the morning’s over, but he doesn’t mull over it for too long, especially when his hand is already reaching for another.

In between bites, Jisung and Chenle swap phones, resetting and backing up and transferring apps and contacts and data, until it’s like they never switched at all.

As Jisung palms over Chenle, now his, phone over in his hand a few times, he notices it doesn’t feel so heavy anymore, so ominous.

He squeezes the phone once, for good measure, and feels the last knot of tension in his chest finally start to unravel. 

He looks at Chenle, still tapping away at some of the last settings, and thinks it’s the least he can do. 

For this dolphin-laughing boy, for his best friend and so much more, he’d do anything.

After several inconclusive rounds of rock-paper-scissors, they decide to split the last yóutiáo, tearing it down the middle. That settled, they sweep the dishes, the cups, into the sink, and leave the pans to soak in soapy water.

Chenle wipes down the table quickly, then grabs his new phone in one hand and Jisung in the other, and drags them both to the couch.

There, sprawled out on either side, legs tangled together, they send a few mass texts, to family and acquaintances and their managers, mostly along the lines of “hey this is chenle i just got a new number” and “new phone--it’s jisung”. 

It goes pretty smooth for the most part, even if they do have deflect questions from their respective mothers with dubious claims about realizing that space gray looks better than gold or wanting to go back to a phone with a headphone jack.

Just as the two are about to tell the rest of NCT, a message pings through from Taeyong.

[neo got my back]

taeyong: hey does anyone know where chensung is i haven’t seen them for a while

taeyong: pls tell me they’re not dead

johnny: they’re dead

taeyong: great

taeyong: anyone else

ten: they’re dead

doyoung: probably dead

renjun: or dying

renjun: like in a ditch somewhere

donghyuck: i wouldn’t be surprised

jeno: i mean i saw jisung yesterday

jeno: when jun and jaem and i were heading out to karaoke

jaemin: oh yeah you’re right!!

jaemin: i think he said something about an internet cafe

renjun: idk tho

renjun: could still be dead

donghyuck: ^^^^^

taeyong: thank you jeno and jaemin

taeyong: my only good children

jaemin: yw hyung :)

doyoung: excuse me but last time i checked i had custody

doyoung: i’ll see you in court

taeyong: ok then you go find them

doyoung: yeah k i’ll go do that

doyoung: only millions of people in this city

doyoung: no big

taeyong: seriously there’s like 16 of us and no one has any idea where they went???

yuta: strip club

taeyong: nO

donghuck: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

taeyong: you delete that right now 

donghyuck: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

doyoung: actually tho now that u mention it i haven’t heard from either of them in a while

yuta: i’m telling u 

doyoung: and i don’t think jisung ever came back to the dorms last night

yuta: strip club

mark: hold on i’m there i can check

mark: i mean i’m at the dorms

mark: not a strip club

yuta: suuuure

yuta: *wink wonk*

sicheng: why do i even talk to u

taeil: i think it’s easier to just not to talk to him

sicheng: fair point

kun: I haven’t heard anything from them either, especially chenle

kun: he’s been kind of under the radar lately

jaehyun: was that yuta yelling “winko noooooo” 

sicheng: yea

sicheng: it was

renjun: didn’t they get into a fight recently

renjun: i feel like they’ve been avoiding each other

mark: yeah can confirm

mark: not at the dorms

taeyong: ok scratch that then

jaemin: maybe they went to make out

jaemin: ****make up

ten: well i mean

ten: no one said it couldn’t be both

donghyuck: spiCY

renjun: why would you make me read that with my own two eyes

And with that, Chenle snorts, scooting over to lay his head on Jisung’s shoulder. “Well, we should probably tell them we’re not dead.”

“And that we made up.”

“And that we’re probably going to make out too.”

Jisung rolls his eyes, even though his pulse is speeding up just from the mention of it. “How about we don’t do that?”

“What, you don’t want to make out with me?” Chenle blows Jisung a kiss, and winks. “Come on, you know you want to.”

“I do, you dummy,” Jisung says, jabbing Chenle in side, who squeaks and tries to squirm away from him. “I just don’t want to broadcast it to sixteen hyungs who will literally never let us live it down.”

“Well, I guess I’ll accept it because it’s the making out part that counts.”

Chenle gets shoved off the couch for that, but it’s alright, because Jisung’s weak, and ends up with his arms wrapped around the older less than five seconds later.

[neo got my back]

jisung: we’re not dead!!!!

jisung: and we made up too!

jisung: :D

jisung: oh this is chenle btw

jisung: we decided to switch phones

taeyong: ok thank god i was actually starting to freak out

doyoung: lmao yeah it was pretty funny

jaehyun: u should’ve seen him he was about to file a police report

doyoung: glad to know you’re still breathing

jisung: sorry hyung~

jisung: really didn’t mean to make you worry

taeyong: it’s ok chenle :)

taeyong: i was probably overreacting

doyoung: you were definitely overreacting

taeyong: i’m trying to have happy moment

taeyong: why do you have to go and ruin it

doyoung: just stating facts

doyoung: but why the phone switch tho???

chenle: idk just felt like it

chenle: gotta spice things up sometimes

chenle: also this is jisung

chenle: if you haven’t already figured that out

For good measure, they take a selfie, peace signs thrown up. They try to look cool, but it’s kind of hard when they’re both in pajamas, hair ruffled up in odd angles, and this dopey, lovestruck light in their eyes. 

Chenle sends it off anyways.

Jisung: [IMG: 1122.jpg]

Almost immediately, the chat blows up. Jaemin nearly drowns out everyone else with a spam of heart emojis, but Jisung thinks he sees things like “aww” and “cute” from the 127 hyungs, interspersed with Donghyuck and Renjun trying to out-cringe each other into oblivion. In a separate text, though, they receive a “glad to have you guys back to normal” from Renjun, and a thumbs up from Donghyuck. Somehow, a shaky video clip of Jungwoo looking confused but pleasant while Lucas screams “dream!” in the background makes its way into the mess as well.

Chenle scrolls through the messages happily for about thirty seconds, before decisively throwing the phone aside to climb over Jisung and position them face-to-face.

They’re close, like brushing noses close, enough to where Jisung can trace out every detail in the curve of Chenle’s eyes, count every individual eyelash, see the little imperfections in his skin that Jisung decides he likes a lot.

They’re close, and Jisung can feel a wire, a red string pulled taut between them, that vibrates with every heartbeat, quivers with every breath they take.

Jisung knows Chenle can feel it too.

_I like Chenle,_ Jisung thinks, as Chenle beams, presses in closer. 

_I like him so much._

It’s not the first time he’s realized it, but this time it’s different, because now they’re centimeters apart, the light turning Chenle’s dark eyes to gold, and neither of them are going anywhere, and Jisung’s sure this time, sure that he likes him so, so much.

His heart aches, but in a good way.

And then Chenle laughs.

A real one.

High and giggly and bubbly, the sound that bounces, sparkles, drenches them both in sunlight, in a spring breeze, budding flower sort of happiness. It warms Jisung to his fingertips, makes him never want to hear anything else again and he’s so, irrevocably in love with it. He’s in love with the stupidest dolphin laugh he’s ever heard, and maybe even the stupid dolphin it behind it, but this time, he tells it so, asks it, in his own bad-with-feelings way, to stay.

“Laugh for me?” Jisung says, simply, innocently, clear and pure like the glass of the floor length windows they face, like the brilliantly blue sky that hangs just outside of it.

It stays.

It’s messy, at first, because Chenle can’t stop smiling like the loser he is and neither can Jisung, clicking teeth and bumping noses. Still, it ignites a glow in Jisung’s chest that spreads through his veins, his blood, until he thinks he’s about to melt.

There’s a hand in his hair, fingers at his neck, coaxing him closer, deeper, and Jisung obliges, every thought beyond how Chenle tastes, how he feels, long since gone. Chenle lets his mouth fall open gently, inviting, and Jisung just about dies when the Chenle tongues the seam of Jisung’s mouth to get him to do the same. Move for move, they mirror each other, connected, melded together; every little noise, hum, sigh that Chenle drops sets his heart into overdrive, sends a buzzing, dizzy feeling through his head. He presses further, wants to hear it again and again and again.

When they finally break apart, they both fall backwards onto the couch. Jisung stares up at the spinning ceiling as he tries to catch his breath, tries to process everything that just happened.

All he really comes up with is, Chenle is a really good kisser.

He swallows.

Like, really good.

Chenle, who had just sat up, collapses back down into a laughing fit, and though Jisung’s kind of confused, he lets it tangle happily through the air with the sound of his pulse.

“God, you’re such a loser, Sungie,” Chenle finally gets out, eyes shining, cheeks flushed, smile blinding. “But,” he adds, licking across his reddened lips, “You’re a pretty good kisser too.”

They look at each other, Chenle waiting for it to hit him.

Then Jisung slaps a hand to his forehead. “Did I say that out loud?”

“You absolutely did.”

Jisung groans, and attempts to roll himself onto the floor out of shame, but Chenle tugs Jisung towards him instead, and squishes himself up against the younger.

“Yeah,” Chenle says after a moment, turning his eyes away from the cityscape in front of him to look at Jisung. “I will.”

“What?” Jisung’s starting to think these kisses are actually starting to fry his brain cells, but he honestly can’t bring himself to care all that much.

“Laugh, you dummy.” He brings a hand up to knock on Jisung’s head. “Is anyone home up there?”

Jisung tries to scooch away, but Chenle just latches onto him tighter. He settles for a pointed look instead, which Chenle returns with a cheeky grin. 

“Thanks, Jisung,” Chenle says.

“For what?”

There’s another couple beats of silence, where Chenle seems to be lost in thought, and Jisung waits.

Then he winds his fingers around Jisung’s, holds onto them tight.

With conviction, he says, “For everything.”

\--

_(They spend the rest of the day much like the first part, eating and making fun of each other and maybe a lot of kissing, only this time it’s accompanied by a run to the convenience store for instant ramen and an incredibly cheesy Korean drama that they both find themselves way too invested in._

_As the last bits of the sunset burn away into darkness, and the city begins to blink to life outside, Jisung finds himself warm, happy, curled up against Chenle under a blanket, cheering the two leads on when they finally kiss._

_In front of the glow of the tv screen, Chenle’s hand in his, Jisung feels, for the first time in a long while, that he’s certain of his future, certain that he made the right choice._

_And he only has Chenle to thank for that.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who made it to the end of this fic and i really hope it was enjoyable even though i was just spilling my chensung feelings everywhere
> 
> And as always, please understand the separation between fiction and real life; I write only with the intent of borrowing faces and situations. Let's always respect the real idols involved :)
> 
> <3


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